Fearless
by Rejhan
Summary: Jace has been abusing Clary's Fearless mark lately, so she comes up with a way to teach him a lesson, resulting in a rather mortifying hunting trip for the blonde Shadowhunter. One simple line can change the entire meaning of a rune mark. COMPLETE


**Fearless**

"Clary! There you are!" Jace Wayland called out, and Clary Fray looked up at him with mild annoyance, a paintbrush sticking out of her mouth. She was seated in the Institute greenhouse, quite happily spending her afternoon painting some of the exotic flowers that had been brought to New York from the Shadowhunter homeland of Idris.

"What do you want, Jace?" she asked around her paintbrush, and the blonde Shadowhunter beamed at her. Clary felt her own mood softening, as it was very hard for her to stay mad at Jace for long, especially when he was smiling at her like that.

"Alec and I are about to head out on a hunt, and I need you to give me the mark," Jace said, and Clary's annoyance returned, bringing friends with it. Jace was beaming at her like an angel, yet Clary knew him well enough to know that his mind worked like a conniving devil.

Clary pulled the paintbrush out of her mouth and glared at her boyfriend. "No," she simply said, and yet that single word held the weight of many more words behind it.

"Awe, come on, Clary," Jace said, sidling over to her with an expression that could almost be called a pout. "It's just not as much fun when you don't mark me," he added, and when the redhead's glare only intensified, he tried another tact. "And Alec hasn't been feeling too crash hot lately, so I need to be at the top of my game. Please?"

Clary sighed. She was never going to get any peace until he got what he wanted, yet Jace had been abusing her Fearless rune mark to the point where Clary was worried that he was becoming addicted to the rush of being able to fight without any trace of fear. She was worried that it was going to end with Jace getting himself killed, yet no matter how often she tried to talk to him about it, he refused to admit that what he was doing posed any kind of danger. The only consolation was that the others didn't know how to properly draw the rune mark, so she was the only one who could administer it. But still, she wished that there were something that she could do.

A thought crossed her mind, and she curled her lips in amusement. She knew straight away that it was a stupid idea, but she also knew that she just had to try it. Besides, Alec would be with him, so he wouldn't be out on his own.

"Okay, I'll do it," Clary said, and Jace blinked once, surprised at having won the argument so quickly, and then he beamed with delight. That smile really was enough to melt her completely, and as she reached for her Stele, she had to repeatedly tell herself to stick to her resolve. Jace wasn't going to learn any other way.

Applying the mark to his right shoulder, Clary deftly made the strokes that were needed, being careful to keep her hand steady. Jace sat very still until she was done, and then leapt to his feet like an excited child.

"Thanks, Gorgeous," he said, and Clary rolled her green eye as Jace bent down to give her a quick kiss. A moment later he was gone, leaving Clary to continue with her art session in peace.

0.0

Alec was waiting for Jace down in the foyer, and when his best friend stepped out of the elevator, Alec pushed away from the wall as Jace walked over. The blonde Shadowhunter was frowning, and Alec quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Are you all right?" he asked, and Jace seemed to jump at the sound of his voice.

"Dammit Alec, why are you standing around in the shadows like that?" he growled, and Alec was left looking quite puzzled. There was plenty of sunlight still coming into the foyer, and whilst he had been standing in a less lit-up spot, it could hardly be classified as shadows. And since when was Jace that jumpy?

"Sorry," Alec apologised anyway, before jerking his head towards the door. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah, I think so," Jace replied, almost in an unsure mumble, and Alec sighed as he shook his head. Whatever Jace's issue was, it would have to wait. There was a report that some kind of large demon was hiding out in Central Park, and the two Shadowhunters had to dispose of it before seven, as Alec was meeting up with Magnus for dinner and a movie, and nothing short of a major catastrophe was going to keep him from making his date with the warlock.

Leading the way through the streets, Alec had his left hand buried deep in the pocket of his black coat, and his right hand held tight around his bow. A simple glamour kept the Mundanes from seeing it, and indeed from seeing him as well, yet several times he had to stop and look around for Jace, who kept falling behind his friend.

"Jace, will you hurry up? Some of us have dates to get to after this little adventure," he called out on one such occasion, and when Jace darted forwards, Alec recoiled in shock, as it looked to him like Jace was making a grab for his arm.

"What is wrong with you?" Alec asked in annoyance, watching as Jace kept looking around, almost like a frightened child.

"There's just too many people out here," he eventually replied, biting his lip. "It's making me feel unease for some reason," he added, and Alec sighed.

"Let's just get to the park, okay?" he said, and Jace nodded, following after his friend once more. The pair eventually made it to the park, and instead of being relieved that the press of people were gone, Jace seemed more jumpy than ever before. The sun was going down behind the distant buildings, casting deep shadows across Central Park, and Jace was sticking to Alec like a small child sticks to its mother.

"Jace, over there," Alec suddenly said, and Jace uttered a little eep of surprise.

"What? Where?" he asked, and if possible, seemed to move a little closer to Alec. The dark haired Shadowhunter nodded towards a clump of bushes that weren't too far away, and soon they could both hear the sound of groaning, followed by the rustle and snap of leaves and twigs. As the two boys watched, an entire bush seemed to start moving towards them, and as it neared, the most horrific smell imaginable reached their nose. It was like the smell of rotting seaweed had mixed with the odour of putrid flesh, resulting in a stench strong enough to turn even the toughest of stomachs.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," Jace gasped, clasping a hand to his mouth as he and Alec took a few hasty steps backwards. Despite it's rather large size, the demon was quite slow, giving both boys ample time to collect themselves. Alec's nose had apparently gone into sensory overload, as the stench was starting to become more bearable, and pulling out an arrow from the quiver that was on his back, he fitted it to his bow and fired upon what he hoped was the demon's head.

The arrow hit the demon, and for a moment Alec wasn't sure if it had had any effect. But then the beast let out a howl of pain and toppled over backwards with a crash of branches, before it faded away completely.

"Well, that was easy. Almost anticlimactic," Alec remarked with a grin, turning around to face Jace. Only Jace was no longer standing, and was instead sprawled out on the ground like a broken doll. Panicked, Alec rushed to his side and hastily checked him over for any signs that he'd been hurt, yet failed to find anything that could account for him being rendered unconscious.

"Jace? Jace!" Alec yelled, shaking the blonde Shadowhunter, and yet he refused to wake up. With no one around to help him, Alec hoisted his friend onto his back, and slowly carried him home to the Institute.

"What the hell happened?" Isabelle asked in shock as the elevator opened, and she rushed forward to take some of Jace's weight off of Alec, who groaned with relief. Carrying Jace's dead weight across the city was one exercise that he could have done without.

"I don't know. He's been acting funny since we left, and he passed out when I took down the demon that was in Central Park," Alec explained as the pair of them dragged Jace back to his room.

"Passed out? Is he hurt?" Isabelle asked as they got him onto his bed, and Alec shook his head.

"That's the strange thing; he hasn't got a scratch on him," her brother replied, and a moment later Clary's red head popped through the door.

"What happened to him?" she asked, and Alec thought that it was strange that Clary seemed to be grinning.

"We don't know. He passed out when we ran into a demon in the park," Alec explained again, and Clary suppressed a laugh. "What's so funny? He could be possessed or something. The demon we faced looked like all of the other bushes in the park, so maybe it possesses things, and it moved onto Jace when I killed it?"

"A Shadowhunter-possessing bush monster?" Isabelle asked with raised eyebrows, and Alec had to admit that it sounded ridiculous, but he honestly had no other explanation for Jace's current state.

"He's not possessed," Clary said with a chuckle. "My guess would be that he passed out from pure fear."

Isabelle scoffed. "Are you serious? This is Jace we're talking about," she pointed out, and Clary nodded.

"I know, but it doesn't make me any less right," she replied, folding her arms over her chest. "Lately, Jace has been in the habit of using my Fearless rune before he goes out on hunts. He said that it makes things more interesting for him that way."

"Well, that explains his more obnoxious-than-normal attitude," Alec interrupted, and Clary nodded.

"Exactly. But it can't be good for him, constantly using the mark like that, so I decided to teach him a little lesson," she added with a wicked glint to her eyes.

"What did you do?" Isabelle asked, feeling slightly unnerved by the look that Clary was sporting.

"It's amazing how one simple line can change so much," Clary said, nodding towards where the Fearless mark could still be seen on Jace's shoulder. "Change the angle of it, and the direction that you draw it in, and 'Fearless' suddenly becomes 'Fearful'," she finished, and both Lightwood siblings were looking at her in utter shock.

"You did _what_?" Alec finally said, and Clary snorted.

"Oh relax, it'll wear off soon enough, and he'll be back to normal," she assured them, and Alec shook his head in shocked amazement.

"He's going to kill you when he wakes up," he said, and Isabelle snorted.

"No he won't," she shot back, grinning at Clary. "Clary's the only one Jace _wouldn't_ kill for something like this. Nice work, Fray," she finished, and Clary beamed back at her.

"Thanks Izzy. Maybe now he'll think twice before he comes running to me for a Fearless mark," she said, and Alec took a step away from the two girls. They looked like they were about to start a girl power movement right there and then, and Alec really didn't want to be around to see it. Besides, he had plans.

"I have to go. I'm meeting Magnus tonight, so I'll see you both later," he hastily said, ducking out of the room as fast as he could.

Meanwhile, Jace was starting to come around, and when he discovered both Isabelle and Clary looking down at him, he frowned in confusion.

"What the hell happened to me?" he asked, and Isabelle laughed.

"I'm going to leave this up to you, Clary," she said, pausing momentarily in the doorway. "If he does try to kill you, and you want backup, just scream," she added with a wink, before she was gone, leaving Jace staring at his girlfriend with questioning golden eyes.

"All I'm going to say is that you don't need a rune mark to be fearless."

"But I-"

"Passed out from terror when facing a demon tonight," Clary finished, and Jace gaped at her.

"I did not," he said indignantly, before the memory of a horrid stench and an overpowering sense of fear came rushing back to him. "Oh god, I did," he corrected, feeling like he wanted to suffocate himself with his pillow out of pure shame.

"I'm going to leave you to think about what happened tonight, and remind you that my Fearless mark is not to be abused anymore. You don't want a repeat of this little incident, do you?" Clary asked sweetly, and Jace shook his head, feeling just a little bit afraid of his girlfriend. "Good," she said, before leaving Jace's room.

Although he recovered from the Fearful mark with no lingering side effects of its use, Jace Wayland never again asked Clary Fray to give him her Fearless mark, even on the rare occasions where it would have been a useful thing to have. Instead, he had come up with a new mantra to tell himself whenever a bite of fear took a hold of him:

"I don't need a rune to be Fearless."

**The End**

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**Author's Note – Just a little piece that's been stuck in my head for a while now, just waiting for a story to shape itself. I wanted to write something with the Fearless rune, and finally came up with an idea that I liked. Lol, it was a lot of fun turning Jace into a coward! Don't mess with Clary's runes! I hope you all enjoyed this, and please review!


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